Elliot Washor's TGIF 09.26.2025

Are you with me now? A. J. Ryder

Said the Monkey to the Buzzard – “Straighten up and fly right” – Nat King Cole – It was a great week for Tricksters

Two weeks ago in Jeff Palladino’s TGIF he mentioned a student from Fannie Lou Hamer getting into Cooper Union. This struck a chord in my Wayback Machine so I texted Jeff to see if this student ever met with BPL board member and Dean of Integrated Studies David Gersten at Cooper Union. Sure enough my memory serves me well. Jeff texted back that Naasir who is now at Cooper did meet with David on a visit to Fannie Lou. At that time, Naasir told David he wanted to be an architect and he showed him his drawings that David thought were incredible. Next, David steered Naasir to a fully funded summer program at Cooper Union and the rest is history. Cooper Union is tuition free and Naasir is a student there. As you can imagine there’s lots of reasons to reference this story. These are close encounters of the best kind. It doesn’t take much but it does take something to make all this magic happen. Much thanks to David and Jeff for taking the extra steps and to Naasir for staying with your passion.

Indocilis privata loqui

Speaking of magic, I just read that after 50 years of being sidelined, Penn and Teller were invited into the Magic Circle. The reason it took so long is that the Magic Circle had a strict rule about not revealing how tricks are done and throughout their career Penn and Teller violated that rule. It was their belief that true magic lies in the performance and the connection to the audience rather than in the secrets themselves. Hmm? I can make a case for this sounding a lot like any organization/school that is protecting its content more than being driven by performance and in this instance the tide has turned. Given the times we are living in with so much content available to anyone, if a very secret society like magicians can make changes to their standards, then perhaps schools can take the step where credit is driven by performance as the measure with the community serving as the audience,

When I called up David about his connection to Naasir, I also asked him about a notion that I’ve played around with for years on currency as a way to credit learning. I asked, “Why is the coin of the realm in schools almost exclusively specified content that is the same as it has been for a hundred years and why is the delivery of this specified content tied to the seat time for a grade? This system creates boredom, disengagement and for most a lack of meaning and purpose. More and more, these school credits are losing their credibility and value. In most cases after you get them, they have less and less value in the world at-large. Because these credits lack meaning, they become worthless not only to young people but also to families, communities and employers.

This opened up a long and what will be a continuing conversation about the history of currency, credit and equity. David knew quite a bit about the often-shady history of monetary currency and from my limited perspective what I know comes from meetings with Dee Hock founder of VISA and his writings on how he succeeded in getting all the banks of the world to agree on currency exchange. This led to the founding of VISA and the ubiquity of credit cards. Just a quick FYI – the root of credit is credible meaning belief. We believe that our abstract paper money has value and is backed by a bank’s guarantee. Jeezz1 Maybe not so good. Think Federal Reserve and Central banks. Can other currencies be created that are credible for crediting learning?

What if we changed to a currency that matters that has meaning for each and every child and the credit for this new coin of the realm is accepted by communities, higher education, businesses and industry? This new currency holds meaning in why, what and how something is learned to all parties and credits learning wherever it happens showing how you are smart not just or only how you are smart on a written test. Can these assets that are free and clear of debt be on some sort of credit card that are built up over time creating equity in all its forms public, private, home, shareholder that truly benefit the person and the community?

David sent me a short writing by Mike Tyson on what might be considered a currency exchange:

"I'll be 60 next year. And I'm not here to impress anyone. I've been the champion. I've been the villain. I've had gold around my waist and nothing in my soul. Now? I just want peace.

Everything else is noise."

I grew up where love was tough and fists were currency.

I didn't learn kindness — I learned survival.

By 13, I was arrested 38 times.

By 20, I was the youngest heavyweight champion in history.

They called me "Iron Mike" — like I wasn't supposed to bleed.

I had money, fame, mansions, tigers, private jets...

But I couldn't sleep. I couldn't breathe.

The world saw knockouts.

I saw ghosts.

At 40, I started asking better questions.

Not "how do I win?"

But "why was I always fighting in the first place?"

And the truth?

I wasn't fighting the other guy.

I was fighting myself. My fear. My father's silence. My mother's pain. My own shame.

Now, at 59, l'm not chasing anything.

I grow mushrooms.

I hug my pigeons.

I walk barefoot on grass and cry sometimes for no reason at all.

I talk more about forgiveness than uppercuts.

I don't need the belt. I don't need the roar of a crowd.

I just want to eat good fruit, tell the truth, and die knowing I broke the cycle.

If you want to know what greatness is — it's not dominance. It's healing.

— Mike Tyson

Last thing for this TGIF. I had a really good call with Paul LeBlanc former president of Southern New Hampshire University. His favorite high school is The Met and as College Unbound was getting its accreditation Paul and Dennis became good friends. A few weeks ago, Andrew referenced Butterflies a short film about their new work and since Paul is moving to San Diego, I wanted to find out more about what their program Matter and Space actually looks like. Basically, it is designed with the intention of creating an AI platform for the whole person, more specifically people living in refugee camps or war-torn areas to continue their education. There’s some really interesting parts that sound similar to a platform we never finished developing called Lukasa. All that said, we are going to continue talking. Since they are in the higher ed space and our work is in the k-12 space it seems that our work and their work may intersect in Matter and Space.

Be well and plenty, plenty, bye, bye